Exposing the underbelly of Armstrongism in all of its wacky glory! Nothing you read here is made up. Every crazy, weird and wacky quote is straight from the pens of Armstrongite leaders or members who think they possess some insight into God and the Bible. What you read here is the up to date face of Herbert W Armstrong's legacy. It's the gritty and dirty behind the scenes look at Armstrongism as you have never seen it before!

Thursday, April 19, 2018

Atheism - How many gods do YOU not believe in?

Anonymous said...

"Atheists are just religious freaks like most other religious nutters. Enough said."

Since not believing makes one a religious "freak" and believing makes one a religious "nutter", what's the third conclusion one can draw from experience with religion? Believing, not believing and____________?

A-gnostic doesn't count. Belief is a conviction as well as non-belief is a conviction. If one is convicted about not knowing then they are also a a-theist or without a belief in God. Hanging out in the middle is either a Theist between religious beliefs or an Atheist softening the descent by kidding themselves. Also, friends and family are much more likely to give one a pass if they use the word Agnostic or "I don't know." That at least sounds hopeful to them you will come to your senses when you finally know the right things and their truth. They will not be so kind to one who has the conviction that they live and think "a", without, Theism.

42 comments:

The word that goes in the blank is "uncommitted". Theism and Atheism have in common a commitment to a certain belief - God exists or God does not exist. The uncommitted correctly regard these both as religious positions.

Atheists spend much time arguing that they are not religious but the truth is more complex. For instance, Dennis has an Armstrongist slant to his atheism. It is the Armstrongist god that Dennins does not believe in. Oddly, I am a Christian Theist and I find myself in Dennis' camp. I also do not believe in the Armstrongist god.

Proving that God does not exist is just as difficult as proving that God does exist. I think atheists do not give this concept its due. They tend to assume that the default is that God does not exist and they need do nothing further. Not the case.

Back to the Armstrongist God. I wrote about this once before and it did not evoke a single comment. The concern about Theism must be small with this audience. The Armstrongist God is not the God of the Christian Movement - in spite of HWA visiting foreign leaders in the Mideast back when and talking about how the Christians, Jews and Muslims all worshipped the same God. Where was he placing himself and his followers in this model? Armstrongists do not believe in the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

And Armstrongists will be the first to tell you that they do not believe in the Christian God. They regard the God of the Christian Movement to be pagan in concept.

In fact, when you look into it, Armstrongists believe in what is called a Demiurge. They use the term "god" to refer to this Demiurge. And a Demiurge has the attributes of of Herbert Armstrong's God. I won't go into all of how a Demiurge differs from God but just one point. The Armstrongist god (demiurge) did not create the universe ex nihilo whereas the God of Jews, Muslims and Christians did create the universe ex nihilo.

The Armstrongist god lives inside spacetime and created only matter and energy. So creation was not ex nihilo. Space and time already existed, apparently uncreated. Of course, you can't find much about this in writings of Herbert and Herman. Armstrongists do not have a well considered Doctrine of God.

When Kyracos Stavrindes introduced the Armstrongists to the actual Doctrine of God in a series of Bible Studies in Pasadena, many of the Armstrongists went bazooka. They knew they were worshippers of a different god. Then, in the follow up, there was great opposition to the "God is ..." booklet.

Ummm..no NEO. It is not the "Armstrong god" I don't believe in any more than the Presbyterian god I grew up with. It is better defined as Bible God as described in the Book. You don't get to define the context for me as if it were not the Armstrong god I would believe the Bible story as real and accurate.

It is testable scientific theory and historical facts vs faith and literalism that have always driven me though repressed in my youth by naivete and wishful thinking.

The god of the Christian Movement" as you say is still Bible God.

Many theologians see the Christian god as a remake of non Christian gods that came before. That is not unique to your view of armstrongist views which I'd also take as too glittering a generality.

The differences between the Demiurge and "the true God" are just as speculative and made up and can not be shown ever to actually be a true based on demonstrable and reproducible facts. Those are faith issues. And Hebrews 11 says faith is the substance of what we hope is true based on absolutely no evidence that it is true.

On about three topics NEO "adressed" "armstrongism" and ended stating:

"Of course you will not find much about this in writing."

One of the things I learned from BB is the use of the word "straw man argument".

I will look into this Demiurg thing though.... sounds interesting.

PS: I did hear HWA speak to prez Mubarak and talk about Allah. At the time I felt that Allah (the one) and "the God family" were different concepts. But hey, the prez had other pressing concerns at the time.... like staying alive in this life.

As a general observation, you learn more about theists and atheists from the individual practices in their lives than you do from the labels.

Also, the demiurge comes from gnosticism. Oddly enough, gnosticism and Simon Magus were widely condemned by a group that worshipped a god who behaved very much like the gnostic god. Shockingly, it becomes like a perverse version of the old addage of the accuser always being the actual doer.

"When Kyracos Stavrindes introduced the Armstrongists to the actual Doctrine of God in a series of Bible Studies in Pasadena, many of the Armstrongists went bazooka"

For good reason. His job was to twist a number of scriptures to begin the Tkach Trinity brain washing. The lying Tkach's take over plan was in full motion.

As Romans 1 points out, those who deny the Creator and think they are wise have become fools. The factual evidence for a Creator has always encircled humans, seen and touched on daily basis.

But now the evidence is even more clear. Mankind didn't even know of the trillions of other galaxies until the last hundred years. An atheist must believe that this limitless universe with near unlimited energy came from nothing. They must ignore the fine tuning of the many laws of physics needed just to create matter. They must close their eyes and minds to the incredible extreme design seen all around them that much better known now with the study of micro biology.

I call their delusion a faith which has to be much deeper then mine in the Creator.

To me, the defining characteristic of the Armstrongist God is that He's a political statist. He (ie, the ministers) own people and people had no rights. All the responsibilities given to people in the parable of the talents, are the rightful property of the ministers. This is the mindset of thugs and bullies.This is the what members have to contend with on a practical level. Sadly, this is also the mainstream christian God.

The supposed predecessor groups of armstrongism, dualism (good versus evil), the Islamic Jesus, hwa and the interfaith center in the sinai, hoeh the budhist, the masonic lodges, the purpose of the church, the egret fountain "aspiration" in front of the temple, the understanding about the spirit in man connecting with god, the acts of the aicf, the need for ritual observation of the feasts in order to come to knowledge about self and connect with god......everything...armstrongism was one of the ultimate gnostic philosophies to the core as Paul taught.

It is important for atheists to know what they are being atheistic about. Most are atheistic about not the Christian God but some form of Demiurge. In religious philosophy, there is a significant and non-trivial difference between God as understood in the Christian Movement and a Demiurge. Men such as Dawkins, Hitchens and Dennett typically argue against the existence of a Demiurge.

The difference between God and a Demiurge, aside from contrasting attributes, in logical debate is that a Demiurge is easily challenged. Hence, the god of Herbert and Herman, being a Demiurge, is easily challenged unlike the God of the Christian Movement.

Many of the popular atheists narrow the target by focusing on a Demiurge. Dennis narrows the target by focusing on "The God of the Bible" with his definition of what that means. Stephen Hawking did the same thing. In response to the Universe and all it contains, Hawking stated that as long as there is gravity it could all happen. This is a demiurgic perspective. It assumes that there is gravity and that there is something for gravity to act upon. And this presumptive position is supposed to be a counter argument to the existence of God. This is his alternative that explains everything without resorting to belief in God. Yet the only thing he may have countered, is the existence of a Demiurge.

In simple terms, an atheist must not only provide us with a demiurgic explanation as to how evolutionism made everything, for example. The atheist must tell us about the uncaused first cause. He must tell us about who or what created reality. Or maybe he should profess agnosticism.

The God of Herbert and Herman lived in spacetime - somewhere in "the sides of the north" - like a Demiurge. The easy challenge is simply to ask where did spacetime come from? Their demiurgic god lives in spacetime but did not create spacetime. So who did and why would that god not be greater than the god of Herbert and Herman? And the demiurgic god that Hawking doesn't believe in can easily be replaced by just gravity.

The demiurgic God that Dennis doesn't believe in can easily be challenged by detractors by finding flaws in OT anthropomorphisms and literary encrustations introduced by generations of human caretakers (with, however, no loss of overarching principle).

"An atheist must believe that this limitless universe with near unlimited energy came from nothing. They must ignore the fine tuning of the many laws of physics needed just to create matter. They must close their eyes and minds to the incredible extreme design seen all around them that much better known now with the study of micro biology. "

No they don't. Just because we as yet are able to completely explain the origins of the singularity or what may have gone before, does not mean "God did it." Those who are not creationistic in their view do not close their eyes. The open them to a much bigger and more incredible view most of which we have only begun to see in the last 20 years. "Extreme design" is not all around or you'd probably not be having prostate problems plaguing older men. No one puts a tube that must always flow through a donut that will swell it shut. All of the "impossible to explain without a god" topics in science will be better and better explained though proper inquiry and not just pulling ideas and beliefs out of a hat that satisfy for the moment. Science well done has not made any gods look more likely, but far less as they shrink away from their Bronze Age powers.

Faith is the evidence of things not SEEN with the eyes. It does not follow that, from that statement alone, we can conclude that there is NO rational reason for having faith.

Scientists have not seen quarks or the Big Bang but they believe those things anyway. They believe it by way of theory and deduction (which in both cases, is not persuasive, and not without competent scientific critics).

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the sign that the things not seen are true." BBE

the way you twisted and misquoted that simple Scripture (and hence redefined its message) is metaphoric, typical of the non believer, and, frankly, further evidence of the kind of arrogance a human being tends to exhibit, whether believer or no...

"Good science done well over time produces the ever shrinking Bible God as well."

This statement cannot be supported. Science (done well - whatever that means)is the application of a certain method of inquiry and evaluation, the scientific method, to observation. A method of inquiry does not permit you to make predictions such as this. As Einstein said, one contravening point of data may overturn an entire theory. One day science may encounter a data point that proves the existence of God. The scientific method does not permit you to categorically predict the future either for or against the existence of God.

It is not true that science will explain more and more until we abandon all notion of the existence of God. There are essential concepts that science will never explain such as:

1. The nature of the uncaused first cause. This is a category that lies outside the purview of science.

2. The nature and origin of reality itself - for the same reason.

3 The nature and origin of existence itself - for the same reason.

To ignore these fundamental principles and focus on only the observable is to deny the ontological and erroneously hang everything on the demiurgic. You will not find the popular atheists talking about how existence itself came to be. Existence is always assumed.

Moreover, it is not true that science results in a shrinking god. In a critically important area, science points to an undeniable divine presence. There is no materialistic explanation as to why Dennis Diehl can understand the advanced concept of science as a form of systematic inquiry. Materialism supports the evolutionary processes of mutation and natural selection. Natural selection will create a mentation that is focused on biological survival. Materialism will not produce an advanced mentation that implements abstract thought and aesthetic and moral development. (Please refer to the book "Mind and Cosmos" for the fundamental reasons why materialism cannot account for the human mind - written by an atheist and professor of philosophy.)

"Religious people ridicule atheists for believing that life came from non-life but would a religious person please explain to me how God created the universe from nothing!"

Religious people ridicule atheists for not believing, of all possible gods that their god brought forth the universe from nothing, and life from non-life.

But would religious people please explain why, if their god doesn't need an explanation for its existence, that the universe does?

And if life can never ever arise from non-life under any circumstances, not even the simplest forms of it, then if your god is living, where did the life of this god come from, and why is he so complex? If you're satisfied that the existence of such a complex being needs no explanation, why does life of any type found here on earth require one?

If you claim your god doesn't need to be explained, and that your god is just a brute fact, why wouldn't it just as satisfactory of a theory to back up one and let the naturalistic be the brute fact instead, rather than appealing, rather unnecessarily, to the supernatural?

"Good science done well over time produces the ever shrinking Bible God as well."

This statement cannot be supported."

Of course it can. God as revealed by scripture on many topics has had to yield to science . Every question that "God" put to Job to put him in his place back in the day is clearly understood now and would not be questions any modern god could get away with asking as if we did not know the answers.

Perhaps you just mean your made up first cause God, who is not the God of the Bible?

Now is your "not Bible God" still the one who became flesh, sacrificed himself in a weekend mellow drama coming back better than ever, a few days later, which is really not a sacrifice at all and pays for my sins along with the quilt we all have of Original sin committed by mythological persons who never did any such thing?

Tell me who your God is in detail? And tell me where you found him/her/it. If it's a first cause God, so what. Where did it go since then and of what practical help and comfort is it to humans now? Does it have a place where the good us go? Does it love us and have a plan for us? Or is it just a first cause , I gotta go, kinda god?

Or is your not the Demiurge God just a bigger made up version, less jealous, less genocidal and less loving to be worshipped, the existence of which also cannot ever be proven?

Science does not point for truly dedicated scientific inquiry to "undeniable divine presence." Maybe yours does. I know Dave Pack's does but he did not do so well defending or proving that when he tried.

I don't believe the Bible is literally true, "God-Breathed" or inerrant.I don't believe serpents and donkeys can talk... ever.I don't believe in Satan or millions of demons as portrayed by religionI don't believe in angels, based on way too many experiencesI don't believe many of the accounts of Old Testament exploits of the Israelites are true.I don't believe the first 11 Chapters of Genesis are literally true or tell us anything about origins, geology or reality in the history of humankind.I don't believe God, as portrayed in the Bible, is anywhere near how a real God would be.I don't believe the Old Testament portrays a consistent picture of monotheism nor do I believe the Israelites, including Abraham and Moses were monotheists.I don't believe the story of Jesus birth, life and death are unique in the history of the world.I don't believe the Gospel Accounts are eyewitness accounts or harmonious in their portrayal of events.I don't believe anyone had a clue about the birth circumstances of Jesus and the authors of Matthew and Luke had a need to make one up based on OT scripture and not facts.I don't believe they chose the same OT scriptures to tell a consistent story.I don't believe the Apostles, as portrayed in the NT, agreed with each other nor had a common faith and view of who and what Jesus was or was meant to be.I don't believe Jesus ever intended to start a church.I don't believe there ever was one true church, consistent in thought, word, practice and deed from the beginning.I don't believe there is one true church to find.I don't believe Paul was a team player nor that his gospel was the same as that of the direct students of Jesus, if that story is true.I don't believe Paul wrote everything he is said to have written.I don't believe the Book of Revelation has relevance anymore and is a failed first century "prophecy.''I don't believe human beings should invest their life energy in those who use the Book of Revelation, which seems to need them to reveal it, to motivate others in fear, compliance and adherence to cultic behaviors and outcomes.I don't believe a lot of things...

Theologically: (and this is tough with my background to put down.)

I don't believer in atonement by executionI don't believe we bear any sin as a result of any Adam and Eve antics.I don't believe in being piously convicted about anything yet marginally informed about everything.I don't believe Jesus died the worst death of any human being ever or you never heard of General Crawford.I don't believe in chosen people leaving others unchosen.I don't believe (or understand)? why the weekend inconvenience of Jesus "death and ultimate sacrifice" is real if shortly after you get to come back better than ever.I don't believe human beings are defective in a way that can be remedied by religion.I don't believe the heart of man is mostly "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." It depends on who you hang with.I don't believe without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin. ("I forgive you" will do just fine).I don't believe any God is three gods, or three gods revealed as one god, and is still not polytheistic in nature.I don't believe in hell as punishment either by annihilation or eternal death.I don't believe dunking, sprinkling or dabbing humans with water changes them.I don't believe I have met a lot of humans have changed by being dunked, sprinkled or dabbed.And I don't believe in a lot of other things I sincerely used to believe.

I do believe humans are hairless, evolved hominids that arrived by the process of evolution I believe the earth is approximately 4.6 billion years old and the Universe 4.5 billion years old. I believe Creationists are dishonest and in denial. I believe they'd say the same about me. I believe you will never find Noah's Ark on any mountain where an elephant would fall to it's death trying to descend or a kangaroo would know how to get back to Australia, and no other place, from.I believe the Discovery Channel and National Geographic Specials are more informative than the plain, present, current, restored, living, united, reconstituted, upheld, redacted, methodical, congregational, catholic, universal, united or revisited truth ever was.I believe human beings can act out "prophecy" and attract evil to themselves and the planet and yet still get no Second Coming for all their trouble.I believe most ministers I know teach one thing and believe another in their hearts but what the heck. I believe that most religious authorities, including Bible characters, prophets, priests and kings, suffer and suffered from delusions, illusions, imbalances and in some cases, outright mental illnesses.I believe we have allowed the mentally unstable or ill to lead us down the wrong path.I believe I have to take personal responsibility for having allowed that to happen.I believe there are many very sincere balanced people in religion who just want to know the truth.I believe the ego motivates many to an unreasonable and inaccurate view of themselves.I believe these types of religious, and in some cases "God haunted" individuals, can rise to high positions in the world of religion.I believe there are some reading this just itching to wish death upon me for not believing what they believe.I believe we are all entitled to believe what we want or need to believe based on our own life experience, needs and ability or desire to look or not look outside the box we came in.I believe it does not matter what I believe.I believe if I understand, then things are as they are and if I don't understand, then things are still as they are.

What do I believe Spiritually?

I believe we are all one small part of the same one big thing.I believe we became conscious and self aware for some reason I don't yet understand but mostly in the last 4000 years.I believe I was born right the first time.I believe whoever, or whatever God is, if so, he/she/it is benevolent.I believe that life is amazing and our true origins are incredibleI believe I have always been very, very sincere in what I believed or do believe.I believe everything will be ok.

What I'd like to believe

I'd like to believe we are a spirit trapped in a mere five sensed carbon based wetsuit that someday we can shed and experience wonderful things forever.

N_E_O recommends: "Please refer to the book "Mind and Cosmos" for the fundamental reasons why materialism cannot account for the human mind - written by an atheist and professor of philosophy."

R. P. recommends: please refer to "From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds" for a plausible narrative about how materialism can account for the human mind--written by an atheist and professor of philosophy.

You might be very encouraged and inspired by studying some of the mathematical work that reveals the sheer improbability of conscious life existing in our universe. I know there are some scientists who say, "Conscious life is extremely improbable, and if there are multiverses such life is extremely rare. However, even if it only occurs in 1 out of every billion trillion universes, that one universe is the only one where there is an awareness of this rarity, so it's not such a surprise." But that's a cheap dodge to downplay just how extraordinary your existence truly is, whether you attribute that existence to a deity or to un-sentient math and physics.

That said, our improbability is so great that it is very easy to envision us as the product of intelligent design, whether that intelligence is running us as a computer simulation or is some kind of transcendent deity. What is hard to envision, though, is the idea that this deity has a "plan for all of mankind." The ACOG answer is compelling to some for precisely this reason. If God is in fact "calling" everybody in their one human lifetime, He is either an incompetent or a sadist, as He has certainly done a terrible job of sharing His message in a way that the brains He created can assimilate it rationally.

So, if there's a God, He is more of a Deist "blind watchmaker" than a micromanaging chess player. Or, He has an individual plan for each individual soul, quite separate from any one religion or "seven-thousand-year plan."

But is there even a Dennis whose consciousness will exist as Dennis after you die? There's just about as much evidence that you will live after this life as that you lived before this life. So, it seems that your task is to live this one life as ethically and expertly as possible, and to let go of too much worry about the before and after.

All of this means that if God exists and is working with you individually, that's between you and God, and He isn't asking you to be a prophet sharing His message with others. You aren't the boss of Bob Thiel (nor vice versa). You have more than enough to do using the brain and heart you have (or that God gave you) to their fullest.

In the meantime, if you see people arguing about what God did or didn't say, it's a safe bet that God said none of it.

I believe whoever, or whatever God is, if so, he/she/it is benevolent.

I understand that you want to believe that. But you also seem to want to be a rational and science-minded observer. So, how can you believe that a benevolent God oversees this universe?

To put it bluntly, all living organisms on Earth feed on the death of other living organisms. Without death, Earth's ecosystem would collapse quickly. With death comes suffering and impermanence and loneliness and loss. Any God who created Earth's ecosystem is a cruel entity that enjoys seeing living entities suffer. Such a god is not much different from a little boy who cruelly tears the wings off of flies or incinerates ants with a magnifying glass. Such a "god" is either the gnostic Demiurge or is the warden of Hell.

Dennis wrote that "I believe most ministers I know teach one thing and believe another in their hearts but what the heck."

Speaking as an LCG "church youth" I must agree with Dennis. Even the young people who attended Living University usually fell into one of two categories, going there either to please their parents or to "get ahead" in the church. Nearly every one I ever had an honest talk with would admit to some private beliefs very different from what the church teaches. Apparently, that's also true of the LU faculty. The rare LU students who arrived as "true believers" were typically the ones who had the worst time there, as they kept having their illusions shattered, but even some who had their illusions shattered decided to press forward and try to get hired full-time and make a career out of something they didn't really believe. What a mess!

Anon 3:38 comments are in my opinion the core truth. A truth that is never discussed and only whispered about behind closed doors. Whether God himself will kick open the door on the hypocrisy of it all would not surprise me. It is a mess with true believers being lorded over by obvious burnt out atheists, egomaniacs and blatant sinners.

I believe whoever, or whatever God is, if so, he/she/it is benevolent.I understand that you want to believe that. But you also seem to want to be a rational and science-minded observer. So, how can you believe that a benevolent God oversees this universe?

I don't in reality. It would be more accurate to put that in the "What I'd hope to be true if..." or "If I thought there was a supreme being , it would be benevolent" etc as opposed to what we find in the OT and demanding blood without which there can be no forgiveness of sins etc.

252 said "But is there even a Dennis whose consciousness will exist as Dennis after you die? There's just about as much evidence that you will live after this life as that you lived before this life. So, it seems that your task is to live this one life as ethically and expertly as possible, and to let go of too much worry about the before and after. "

This is my view as well. Enjoyed your perspective in your whole comment and agree. All the factors that have led to the world we see are truly amazing. No doubt about it and as we learn more we can appreciate it more. Also, we are searching for those exoplanets that might also have thrived and produced life of their own in their "Goldilocks Zone" Hope I live long enough to find out or at least that Mars, which once had much water before it lost its atmosphere, had life as well.

Stephen Hawking was deceitful because, in his book for the public, "A Brief History of Time," he used the word 'God' in way that he knew would be misunderstood by the public. I.e. he intentionally misled his readers. Little did the public know 'God' is often used by physicists as a code word for 'The Universe', when they are not necessarily talking about God at all.

Kind of like how physicists talk about the "God Particle" even if they don't think this particle has anything to do with God, but is a key to understanding the universe.

Dennis wrote: "God as revealed by scripture on many topics has had to yield to science."

No doubt that OT Biblical detail has had to yield to science albeit without yielding the meaning of principle. The mistake you are making is that you are centered on the Old Testament for your "doctrine of god." And, of course, you feel that science has this god on the run. In fact to achieve this you make an error that you accuse others of - that is, you have become a Biblical literalist. Much of what you would consider error, I would venture, is developed by converting allegory and symbolism, like the talking snake of Eden, to some form of literalism. And literalism is always subjective - no two people will agree on what a "literal" interpretation of a Bible passage actually is.

Another mistake you make is common among atheists. It is "wrapping yourself in the mantle of science." Such as the statement:

"Science does not point for truly dedicated scientific inquiry to "undeniable divine presence."

"For truly dedicated scientific inquiry" is nothing more than a personal bias that recruit science to your cause. I could contend the same thing for my point of view (and did). Nothing is resolved.

None of your statement responds to the substance of what I wrote.

A sidebar: Why is your syntax so bad in these posts? Are you using some kind of a strange text editor? I don't know if I am responding to your statement or to some error introduced by a software product.

7.50 AMStephan Hawking found himself in a difficult situation which is experienced by many. When Christ spoke the truth in His home town, they tried to throw Him off a cliff. The religious leaders threatened to put out of the temple those who acknowledged Christ. Today this would be the equivalent of being marginalized and shunned by ones professional peers and perhaps being avoided by ones customers. So one commonly finds self help books that blame the effects of sin on such things as sex (eg, Freud) or on neurosis or similar. Sin is either not mentioned or tip toed around. People like Stephan keep their mouths shut about God.

This is the compromise they make in order to survive in the real world, and I leave it to God to judge these people.